Telephony communications have traditionally been provided by the public switched telephone network (PSTN), which remains dominant in providing telephony services using circuit-switched connections. The PSTN continues to provide the highest quality of service levels for telephony communications and extends to a vast majority of the population. With the ever-increasing availability and quality associated with voice-over-packet technologies, there is a movement towards providing telephony communications in association with various types of media services via packet-switched networks.
An increasing number of households and businesses have both PSTN connections through telephony lines, such as plain old telephone system (POTS) lines, as well as broadband access over packet-switched networks to provide access to the Internet, file transfer, streaming media, and the like. Although the PSTN provides a higher quality of service, broadband access quality is continuing to increase and has reached a level at which voice communications are of an acceptable quality. Accordingly, PSTN and broadband subscribers can theoretically facilitate telephony communications via the telephony line or broadband access; however, there is no way to effectively integrate telephony communications over both the telephony line and via broadband access in an efficient and user-friendly manner.
For example, there is no way to associate the same directory number with multiple telephony devices and yet provide for calls to be directed over either the telephony line or via broadband access. Additionally, even though there are two paths through which to connect to a subscriber, there is no way to use both lines at the same time in association with the common directory number. Further, there is no way to automatically allow a subscriber to select the use of either a telephony line or broadband access to receive or initiate calls based on the desired quality level or other priority indicia. There is also no way to allow multiple calls to be simultaneously connected in association with a common directory number. In short, existing technology does not allow an effective integration between a telephony line and corresponding broadband access in an efficient manner.